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 CHAPTER XI.

THE ORANGE FREE STATE.—PRESENT CONDITION.

Sir George Grey, who was at that time Governor of the Cape of Good Hope writing to Lord John Russell on 17th November 1855,—Lord John having then been Secretary of State for the Colonies,—expresses himself in the following glowing terms as to the region of which I am now writing. "The territory of the Orange Free State forms one of the finest pastoral countries I have ever seen. There is no district of country in Australia which I have visited which throughout so great an extent of territory affords so uniformly good a pastoral country." A short time previous to this, Sir George Clerk, when he was about to deliver the State up to the Government of the Dutch, declared,—or at any rate is popularly reported to have declared,—that the land was a "howling wilderness." I think that the one colonial authority was quite as far astray as the other. Sir George Grey had ever a way with him of contending for his point either by strong language or by strong action. He was at one time Governor of South Australia, but perhaps never travelled as far north as the Salt Bush country of that Colony. The Colony in his time was in its infancy and was not known as far north as the pastoral district in question. I